In what is perhaps the biggest gaming news in years, Microsoft is purchasing Activision Blizzard – but will Activision games still launch on PlayStation?
Microsoft has been making massive moves by purchasing some of gaming’s biggest publishers, like Bethesda and now Activision Blizzard. After arguably falling behind Sony in the Xbox One/PS4 generation, they’re clearly going for a different strategy now.
But with so many games falling under the Activision Blizzard name, PlayStation could end up losing quite a few franchises in the future.
One of the biggest potential losses is Call of Duty. If Microsoft made it Xbox/PC exclusive, PlayStation would lose one of its most popular games. However, there’s no guarantee this will actually happen. Phil Spencer has said he doesn’t intend to “pull communities away from that platform”.
When Microsoft purchased Mojang, it kept Minecraft on all platforms where it is still playable today. The same could happen with Call of Duty due to its massive popularity. It’s unlikely a live-service game like Warzone would be removed from PlayStation, but future standalone Call of Duty games could be Xbox exclusive if Microsoft does go down that route.
Activision on Xbox
Other franchises such as Crash Bandicoot are now owned by Microsoft too, but it’s unknown what it’ll do with them. Microsoft isn’t known for making the most out of its IPs. When it bought Rare, most of its popular games were left behind and the company ended up making Kinect games.
But this is a different Microsoft to the one from multiple generations ago, and with these gargantuan purchases of gaming publishers it has proven it’s not afraid to make big moves. Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls VI and Starfield have already been confirmed to be Xbox exclusives. With that in mind, it’s safe to assume a large portion of Activision Blizzard’s properties will no longer be playable on PlayStation.
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[Featured Image Credit: Activision Blizzard/Sony]